Is it possible for pops without happiness to join factions?

[Pancakelord]

So I've made some custom Machine intelligence factions, some work, some don't.

First, to enable MI factions, i've enabled their ability to exist within the authority file for MIs and Hives [factions = yes, rather than no], so factions can spawn.

Second I have created 4 factions that, for now, do nothing. One for Biotrophies, Grid-slaves, cyborgs and MI_drones.

• Of the 4, Bio trophies and Grid slaves work without issue.
• But Cyborgs and MI_drones Will Not consider joining a faction.

I've trawled through every game rule, government file, country setting, citizenship status and MI trait I can think of, but nothing turns up. Something is preventing MI drones (trait_machine_unit) and cyborgs from joining factions [And I really don't understand the cyborg case, as cyborgs can join factions in regular empires]

I'm thinking this is somehow related to:

1. how the game "handles" MI pops - either on a trait basis [ trait_machine_unit / trait_cyborg ] OR
2. the forced happiness nature of MI pops [regular cyborgs can join factions, not MI ones?]
3. some weird game rule related to machine citizenship?

Does anyone have any suggestions to get MI drones into factions? After about 5+ hours trying many things, I'm stumped.

Here's my Biotrophy faction working in game + the assignment settings.

But, for the compliant_drones faction [the one I want MI drones to join]
Using the below as a validator does not work (despite it's equivalent working for biotrophies).

can_join_faction = { has_citizenship_type = { type = citizenship_full_machine } }

Also, if I input "always = yes" for potential.
The biotrophies [5 on RS earth start] will join the compliant drones faction [later swapping to content Biotrophies faction, when re-evaluating].
But Drones Will NOT join any faction.
So something must be preventing MI robots and cyborgs from evaluating factions??

My plan is to create a batch of factions for event-chains to hook in to (as a proxy for country-specific global variables, so this can work in multiple empires or MP simultaneously without issue [global variables really dont work so well for this as each empire pulls the same var] -and this setup of mine works, having already created a pretender-heir event chain for regular empires, that can fire in multiple empires concurrently, But this MI drone faction assignment problem has utterly stumped me).

 

[Pancakelord]

The only other thing that I can think of blocking this is the sentience check "is_sentient" - I have checked high and low but nothing defines whether a MI_drone - or an MI_cyborg - are sentient or not, so not sure if this is the cause?

 

[Pancakelord]

It appears the machine and cyborg pops cannot physically attract to factions
factions.showattraction : DA pre-scripted empire

factions.showattraction : RS pre-scripted empire

notice "tot:500 and tot: 5000" that comes from the 5 biotrophies, multiplied by the base values of 100 and 1000 respectively for those two factions.

Machines/cyborgs do not seem to attract to factions, but there is nothing in the game files that controls for this, that I can find?

 

[Pancakelord]

Happiness is used as a proxy for can join factions y/n.
When I added nerve stapled all faction attraction from the 5 biotrophies died.

This means that any pop that cannot experience happiness can not join a political faction... I have no bloody clue why that was written in as a check.

There also doesnt appear to be any specific rule that relates factions to happiness... So no clue how to get around this without giving machines happiness (which i'd rather not do) - "forced_happiness = yes " appears to be the effect, specifically.

 

[DrNukeLear]

Off the top of my head check game_rules, I think there’s a can_join_faction or some such entry, I think it’s an array of traits. I’ll look at it tomorrow. I’m actually trying to add robots to a robot faction at the moment.

 

[Pancakelord]

Off the top of my head check game_rules, I think there’s a can_join_faction or some such entry, I think it’s an array of traits. I’ll look at it tomorrow. I’m actually trying to add robots to a robot faction at the moment.

Yeah I managed to get it working this morning

(dont mind the faction, they do respond to limits & weights)

Comment out the hive mind and machine_unit traits by species_has_happiness and they'll join factions. Edit: the cyborg block too for DAs.

Have been too preoccupied to test it fully, though a quick look shows it does some weird things [probably because these pops are under the effects of forced_happiness = yes - ramming their happiness up to 100%]

All 5 Bio Trophiess and all machines report 100% happiness yet an 81% approval rating lol (its the same with happiness off though, just an opaque little menu).

Also, because it's tracking happiness, pops radically inflate Dip weight now

VS with happiness off:

111-47 = 64. 64/2 = starting 32 servitors. As they're stuck at 100% happiness they count for 2.

As far as I can tell everything else is superficial/UI glitches, just the pop weights are an actual/material change.
I suppose reducing the DipWeight of machine pops by 50% with a empire modifier would more-or-less fix this, would have to live with the slightly odd UI happiness outputs though. I havent found a way to force happiness to 50%/neutral, which would at least read a little better.

Edit: when I think about it some more, I actually quite like DA cyborgs having 100% happiness. It turns their troops from unthinking/feeling robo-goons into Borg with terrifying grins, far worse lol.

Not so sold on the other two yet. Might be interesting to enable un-forced happiness on rogue servitors drones and have Biotrophies provide ++happiness to the drones.

Happy cyborgs and depressed servitors...That'd actually be quite interesting to see..

 

[Pancakelord]

Lifted from the 3.0 trigger docs is this interesting item.

change_species_characteristics - Changes the characteristics of a species
change_species_characteristics = {

sapient = <Y/N, determines if species is pre-sapient>​

immortal = <Y/N, determines if species leaders are immortal>​

pops_can_be_colonizers = <Y/N, determines if pops of that species can colonize>​

pops_can_migrate = <Y/N, determines if pops of that species can migrate>​

pops_can_reproduce = <Y/N, determines if pops of that species can reproduce>​

pops_can_join_factions = <Y/N, determines if pops of that species can join factions>​

can_generate_leaders = <Y/N, determines if that species can generate leaders>​

pops_can_be_slaves = <Y/N, determines if pops from that species can become slaves>​

pops_have_happiness = <Y/N, determines if pops from that species have happiness>​

can_be_modified = <Y/N, determines if the species can be modified>​

pops_auto_growth = <1, speed at which the pops from that species grow automatically​

pop_maintenance = <1, amount of energy each pop of that species consume monthly​

new_pop_resource_requirement = { type = food_surplus value = 42 }​

portrait = <key or species event target>​

Supported Scopes: species

Not sure if this is some vestigial property, as will need to test when nemesis is out, but it looks like it may be possible for happiness-less pops (MI cyborgs, nerve stapled, drones etc) to join factions. seeing as they've split the join faction property out from the has happiness property.

There's a bunch of other interesting faction things in the 3.0 triggers too, but this may be the crux of getting Gestalt factions ingame without editing how drones work, as happiness is currently a requirement to partake in politics (lol).